


what a terrible, messy thing, to be given a heart

by simmer (lemonpie)



Series: each of them made a shipwreck for themselves [1]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Forbidden Love, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28641459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonpie/pseuds/simmer
Summary: Let it fall, let it burn to embers beneath its own hubris, let the flames eat him too so that he may repent for this, for all the things he's done.For all the times he's lied through his teeth to his men, to his officers; his soldiers, his pawns; his friends, his family. Let him burn for all the things he's said, for all the wrongness that builds inside of him, battering against the wall of his psyche. Let him burn for the tide, for the ocean his pirate loves more than he'll ever love James.
Relationships: James Norrington/Jack Sparrow
Series: each of them made a shipwreck for themselves [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099850
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	what a terrible, messy thing, to be given a heart

**Author's Note:**

> i.

It's an awful thing to love. Messy, it is.

James never thought he could love someone so fiercely and completely as he does. He thought maybe he'd loved Elizabeth. 

That pales into comparison to what he feels now, a head of matted brown hair resting on his bare chest, the pirate it belongs to muttering under his breath even in sleep. 

It's wrong. 

All of this - it's _wrong._ In all the ways James knows and a hundred more besides. 

But god - God - he doesn't care. He can't care, not when he can feel Jack's heart thudding a slow, steady tattoo against the side of James' ribs. 

If he stays here much longer he's sure there'll be a mark there when Jack goes. Maybe, he thinks, maybe Jack will come back sooner for the rest of his heart, and James will be able to hold him like this for a moment more.

That's not fair. It's not, he knows it's not, but he can't help but think it, here in the dark with no companion but the sleeping pirate he's found himself with and the soft, steady glow of the moon.

Port Royal could fall, and he wouldn't move. Let it fall, let it burn to embers beneath its own hubris, let the flames eat him too so that he may repent for this, for all the things he's done. 

For all the times he's lied through his teeth to his men, to his officers; his soldiers, his pawns; his friends, his family. Let him burn for all the things he's said, for all the wrongness that builds inside of him, battering against the wall of his psyche. Let him burn for the tide, for the ocean his pirate loves more than he'll ever love James. 

Let him _burn_ and let him love anyway. 

Because it feels a lot like burning, this love. Like he's always five steps behind, watching as his pirate takes flight and disappears over the edge of the world, pulling James along with him like the unfathomable pull of a riptide he can't see, down, down, down into that dark abyss. 

He'd follow. 

He'd go, towed along like a little fishing ship, like a child behind his father. He'd go, because he has no choice but to go. 

He isn't the first to love Jack. Isn't even the only one that loves Jack in this moment. Isn't the only one that feels this fierce, burning devotion. The thought stings his throat, makes his jaw groan a protest where he clenches his teeth far too tightly. 

Even though he likes to think he is, in those moments where he can hardly think. 

In these moments, the moments after, when Jack is asleep, heartbeat against his ribs, when James waits for the sun to rise so that he may sleep in peace knowing none will come upon him with a pirate - a wanted fugitive, no less - in his bedchamber. In these moments, he knows better. 

Jack is no more his as the sky is his, as the sea is his. Jack belongs to no-one but himself, and he likes it that way. And James doesn't have the heart to even try to take that away from him. 

Keeping Jack here, locked away, would only be another cage. 

A guilded cage is still a cage, no matter how you look at it. 

He could never live with himself if he caged Jack in any way. Forcing him to be land-bound forever, to be within reach of the endless ocean and the impossible horizon, but never able to chase it, never able to again stand his feet on the deck of his ship, it would be cruel in a way James has learnt not to be. 

A year ago, he would have done it. A year ago, he would have put the noose around Jack's neck himself and been pleased as anything about another pirate dead. 

A year ago, he would have thought nothing more of it. 

Now he knows better. 

For all he's killed, he's regretted. Every life lost has been another hour of lost sleep. Every man he's struck down by sword or gun or canon. Every man he's left on a ship full of holes, every man he's turned away from, every man he's left to die. 

But killing this man would have been the last straw, even back then. 

Seeing Jack, so full of life even now, with his clever eyes and a soul like the sea, harsh and changing and untamable, dead, it would have ruined James. 

Getting to love him, getting to know him as he does now, ruins him in a different way. 

One day, he's certain, Jack won't return. He'll sail too close to something with too many teeth, and he won't get out fast enough, or he'll simply grow tired of James and go to warmer waters and forget entirely about the navyman who's heart he held in one hand. 

And James will be left, never knowing if the man he loves is alive or dead, surviving off of scraps of rumours whispered by people who are too afraid to even say the word _pirate,_ like they might call down the plague of Davy Jones just by speaking the word. 

Because this, he's sure, isn't a love that will wane with time. He knows because every time Jack goes, James never loves him any less. It will kill him one day, this heart of his. 

This terrible, messy heart of his. 

He has things to do here. He has the respect of his men, the title he's been working towards for so long, and yet. 

It pales in comparison to this. To the trust in him Jack has put upon his shoulders, to the way he watches Jack's ribcage rise and fall and feels affection so strong he could go blind with it.

All of it matters little when he can hold Jack like this and listen to his breathing, feel the familiarity of sun-bronzed skin beneath his palms when he sets them to Jack's spine like rapture. When he can love like this, what does any of that matter? 

He sighs against the rush of emotion that breaks itself against his tired eyes, closes them against the battering ram. 

Jack is gone when he wakes up. 

The tattoo of his heartbeat against James' ribs stays for weeks until he realizes his pirate isn't coming for the scraps of his heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you


End file.
